Various types of thermal insulators or insulating shields are known in the art and used in a wide variety of applications including, but not limited to, automobiles, home appliances or other structures and devices necessitating heat insulation.
Thermal insulating shields function by being a radiation thermal shield while other types are conduction thermal shields and may be at least in part fibrous in nature, for example formed of fibrous batts of organic and/or inorganic fibers. These types of insulation are useful where static and dynamic forces are limited on the fibrous insulation. This is important for fibrous insulation shields since these types have limited strength in X, Y or Z directions.
Fibrous batts usually include inorganic fibers such as glass, mineral and clay wool, alumina-silicate, silica fibers and the like to provide sufficient thermal insulation in various applications. However, when such sheets are suspended, the fibrous batt may not have sufficient strength in the Z direction, that is the vertical thickness direction, since there may be insufficient interlocking of the fibers. For example, even under extended static loading of the batts own weight, the insulation may sag. It may be therefore desirable to provide a structure which improves the tensile strength of such fibrous batt in any of the X, Y and including the Z directions.